Homepage Best Practices: How to Make an SEO-Friendly Homepage

Homepage SEO can help your site appear more authoritative and high-quality to Google, and increase brand awareness among your target audience. A homepage can rank for relevant non-branded keywords while also helping other pages on your site to rank. 

But, SEO is not the only or most important aspect of a website. 

Are you wondering what are the best homepage practices you can use to improve your rankings? Keep reading to learn different ways you can optimize your main page.

Yes, homepage SEO actually exists. Yet, many industry experts have struggled with this question. Homepages focus on showcasing brands rather than just one particular keyword.

Exact or partial match brand names are the primary concern for those who dismiss homepage SEO. For example, if you sell socks and name your brand “Socks" and your domain name "socks.com," competition for your homepage in search engine results pages may heat up SERPs. Others using "socks" as a keyword can drag your homepage down, despite your best SEO efforts.

The reasoning for ignoring homepage SEO is that keyword-heavy domains can create issues that aren't worth an Internet marketing team's time and effort. But, expanding your pool of targeted keywords relieves pressure on these sites and brands in general.

Just as you might target a couple of related keywords in a blog post, your homepage can follow a theme or broad focus rather than becoming too narrow.

When avoiding homepage SEO, a common mistake is to put everything on the first page. Homepage SEO works best when you choose a few of the most important things to highlight on your page. This can result in increased traffic and increased revenue.

Homepage SEO resembles the general flow of optimizing a page for search engines. It includes describing to Google and human visitors what your business/product does. 

An important component of SEO is having a site structure that makes it easy for visitors to find the information they need. You can answer key questions by providing rich content and social proof. The interesting part is that achieving these goals kills two birds with one stone. You can draw both human and search engine visitors to your website by integrating key aspects like keyword-optimized headings, clear navigation, and rich content.

Your logo should be included on the homepage because it reinforces your brand identity. You should include all your site's key sections in the navigation. This allows users to focus their searches and find what they're looking for. It also helps Google understand the theme of your website and brand. Just make sure that your navigation is clear and follows a logical flow.

Your website's homepage serves as a welcome center for visitors. That means they'll have to learn about your business once they arrive. It is important to describe your specialty, the products or services you provide, and what sets you apart from competitors. 

Organizing your business's components into manageable sections makes it easier to communicate your best qualities. But, keep your explanation short, so that visitors can learn more on other pages deeper on your website. Your visitors can navigate and find the information they need if you link to these pages.

Google and your readers should be able to understand what your product or service is all about from your homepage. It is important for both parties to understand the context.

In SEO, this is generally done by focusing a page's content around a target keyword. This keyword describes the topic of the page. This doesn’t mean that your page will only rank for this keyword. It will certainly rank for tens, if not hundreds, of relevant keywords. But you have to pick that one first.

Make a list of keywords that best describe your product or service to get started. Make a list of the words or phrases that come to mind. These words should come naturally to you because you probably already know a lot about your niche. Make a list of your competitors and search their websites to find the words they use to describe their products.

When you have a certain number of keywords, you should enter them into an SEO tool. You should evaluate the traffic potential of each keyword and understand the search intent behind each one. You can use any SEO tool, but it's best to use one that doesn't group keywords.

The purpose behind the search query is known as search intent. Basically, you want to see the same type of pages that you want to optimize in  SERPs for these keywords. Moreover, since we can assume our homepage will be describing a product, we can broaden our search for landing pages with the same intent.

Your homepage title is the ideal place to play up branding. You can reference your best-selling products and brand for a higher click-through rate. The HTML title tag appears in the SERPs and at the top of browser tabs, so it follows users from the beginning of their journey to the end of their on-page session.

The title is one of the factors Google considers when understanding and ranking your homepage. You can include your brand name in your title tag alongside keywords related to your products and benefits. A branded title tag, whether at the front or back of the line, can increase brand awareness in the long run. The title tag should be under 60 characters so that Google can display the entire name without any unnecessary words trailing off.

Your meta description, together with your title tag, can boost your homepage click-through rate and lead people to your site. 

The meta description, unlike the title tag, is not a ranking factor. Good meta descriptions serve as a sample for users within the SERPs. You can capture their attention before they ever arrive at your page. In any case, a good meta description can convince a searcher to visit your homepage. 

Your brand name and a few in-context keywords should appear in your meta description. Avoid jamming keywords into your site’s meta description. Instead, use simple sentences to climb the SERP ranks and inform users about what they can find on your homepage.

Headers play an important function in SEO. Google uses headers to determine what your page is about and which sections are most important to visitors. They provide an information hierarchy, which is helpful when visitors skim your site. 

H1 and H2 headers can improve the user experience as visitors browse around your homepage, and help Google index and rank your site.

Use only one H1 tag towards the top. This should be directly related to your brand and overall theme. You can then use H2s, H3s, and even H4s as needed to build an effective hierarchy and logical flow.

We all know that the vast majority of people prefer visual content over text-only content.

As a result, it goes without saying that you'll want to include at least a few images on your homepage. Homepage SEO for images requires the use of popular file types such as JPEG and the use of original, keyword-based names for your images. High-quality images with a sharp look can amplify your main page.

Videos are another fun way to encourage people to visit your site because they can make it rich and appealing. Internet users watch a lot of videos in their spare time, so videos are a viable channel for visually communicating your company's benefits.

If your video appeals to viewers, it can generate some big backlinks. Or at the very least, it will drive home your USP and clarify things for visitors.

A homepage should include social proof and credibility indicators.

Social proof, whether in the form of testimonials, reviews from happy customers, or icons from clients you've worked with, will have a positive influence.  In this case, you can include the icons of companies you’ve worked with as well as a testimonial from them.

In some cases, the effect may be quite dramatic. This is another method to include rich text to impress search engines and convince potential customers that your business is worth working with.

Your homepage is a good place to practice internal linking. After all, internal linking is an essential component of SEO. Linking on your homepage can improve user navigation and establish site hierarchy signals. 

If it makes sense for your homepage, provide a handful of relevant links. These will usually be located towards the bottom and will serve as simplified navigation for your visitors. 

Internal links in the footer can serve as an additional menu that guides users to other useful pages on your site, such as your about page or your locations page. You should make sure that they are completely centered on the concept of your site and brand and that they do not overflow your footer.

Internal linking for homepage SEO is a good idea as long as you keep natural links. To spread link juice—the ability of your pages to rank well—try including a few internal links in the body copy of your homepage. This will help your page rank better overall.

While optimizing your homepage for SEO, you don’t want the visitors to camp only on the main page. You want to attract visitors to learn more about your business and services by directing them to your homepage content.

The first step in stimulating a positive flow is to create a menu. When you fill-up the information for your homepage, it should mirror the menu and the structure of your site. You can divide the important areas so that users don't waste time trying to figure out how to contact you or where to find your blog.

Next, think about the "above the fold" content — as it began with stories above the newspaper's fold, you want readers' eyes to land on specific parts of the text first.

Include your main content in the first few sections to catch visitors' attention right away. Even if readers wind up scrolling down, the top section of the material will get the most attention, so start with your most convincing features.

Some visitors may stop reading at the beginning, but that doesn't mean you should stop guiding them through the rest of your body material. With great design and engaging snippets, visitors may easily transition from one topic to the next.

CTAs convert visitors into leads. Although it is a simple part of your homepage, it is something you should put a lot of effort into. The homepage should serve as a hub for getting high conversion rates. While CTAs do not guarantee better homepage SEO, they do help you in retaining visitors and increase your chances of getting potential clients, which can help your business grow.

CTAs on your homepage might attract visitors to contact you, call you, submit their email, subscribe to a newsletter, view pricing, or fill out an application. There are lots of things your visitors should do through your main page.

Homepage CTAs should instill viewers with a sense of urgency. So what can encourage users to act quickly and enter their information? Some characteristics of a good CTA include:

• It should stand out.
  
• It should be straightforward.
  
• It needs to be very clear
  
• Choose the ideal color scheme, and location, and perform A/B testing.
  

CTAs should stand out from the other content while also maintaining a firm hold on trust.

Enhance your CTAs on the homepage to link together your homepage theme and encourage conversions for future growth.

As with other aspects of web design less is often more. The homepage design represents your company's best face, but it should not be confusing or chaotic. A simple, attractive design is easy to understand and leaves a better impression on visitors. 

In your SEO-friendly design, you want your font, color palette, spacing, and buttons. Font is an important factor in your optimization process because it is a consistent element throughout the homepage. Make sure your font is not undersized to ensure that it is easy to read. 

Medium-sized fonts are a safe pick for new sites. A/B testing — testing two versions of a site with different demographics, can provide a clear answer about the preferred font.

Responsive design to support mobile devices is also necessary to get the most of your homepage. Because mobile devices host a large number of Internet sessions, Google prioritizes mobile-optimized sites in its indexing. For your website design to survive between devices you need a responsive design that adapts the dimensions of your page to a variety of screen sizes.

Homepage SEO optimization is important for improving a website's rankings. 

Best practices include using clear navigation and providing rich content that explains what your company offers. Other important things to consider for homepage optimization include keyword incorporation, strategic title tags, visuals, and social proof. Overall, implementing these practices can improve your website's user experience and search engine rankings.